A Sprinkle of Stardust

Chapter 23 - Confrontation

Nash cut an attractive figure where he stood at his window, gazing out at the sunset-bathed treetops. It was too bad being handsome wasn't going to save him from Lyrani's wrath.

He had crossed a line. She was done with his pretences.

Nash didn't move, not even when Lyrani was standing right behind him. He must've heard her come in. He must know she was there.

"What have you done?" she asked softly.

Lyrani didn't want to believe she was right. She didn't want to believe that it was him who had done this, the man who had taken them to a dragon sanctuary; the one who made Lyrani's heart skip a beat when he kissed her cheek, but unlike him, the evidence didn't lie.

Nash gave no sign that he had heard her. He stared out at the eerily still leaves beyond his window as if he had never seen anything so fascinating.

"Call it off." Lyrani raised her voice.

The king had to hear her now.

"Irylen...how could you?" Lyrani's voice cracked.

It was one thing to attack another clan as part of some twisted show of the power of Elvenland and its ruler.

This was different. These were Nash's people, and they hadn't done anything to him. They had stood by him despite the rumours of the menace he was, not turned on him even in the wake of his tyranny. He was supposed to protect them, not take away everything they had.

Lyrani thought she knew him from their conversations, but she really didn't. Nash had done nothing but lie to her.

He might be lying about not remembering deserting her in the forest when they had danced together the previous day just to lure her closer to him. He might even have lied about his tragic childhood just to earn Lyrani's pity and lower her guard.

Lyrani was the fool for having a bleeding heart, for giving him even a glimpse of her life's blood.

Nash had listened to Lyrani talk about her life and the people she loved in Irylen with such a convincing smile on his face that she had believed his interest and empathy. In the meantime, he had been planning this attack.

The frustration building within Lyrani finally erupted.

"Can't you at least turn around?" Lyrani screamed, grabbing a crystal decanter from the table and hurling it at the king's head.

It arced through the air, a beautiful missile that stopped a hair's breadth short of Nash.

He turned, his face strangely calm. Detached. The face of a murderer.

Lyrani shrunk back.

The decanter, which had been hovering in midair, shattered against the floor. Lyrani stared at the shards, eyes wide as she stepped away from Nash, wondering what exactly she had walked into when she followed her fury blindly into a dragon's den.

Nash looked at Lyrani with the misty gaze of a daydreamer. "What?"

There was something off about his voice. It sounded like the same instrument, but someone else was pulling the strings, someone with less dainty and rhythmic fingers. It reminded Lyrani of what had happened during the king's so-called memory lapse.

"This is getting old, Nash," snapped Lyrani.

The forgetting excuse was becoming too convenient. Lyrani would see to it that the king answered for what he had done. No more could he avoid responsibility with lies as invisible as spiderwebs that could entangle Lyrani before she realised they were there.